CompTIA: Tech Employment Booms, Telecom Jobs Fizzle

The “as-a-service” revolution continues to fuel job growth in the IT services and custom software markets, says a recent report from industry association CompTIA.

​The technology sector remains a leader in industry job growth, adding an estimated 9,600 jobs last month. Since 2012, IT has experienced 12 percent job growth, the fastest of any industry. An analysis by CareerBuilder and labor market data provider Emsi shows gains of about 472,000 tech jobs since 2012.

Unsurprisingly, software development talent still leads the race for the most in-demand skill set, with nearly 61,000 postings last month—more than the combined total of the next four categories

New openings were also created in the fields of search portals; computer and electronic products manufacturing; and data processing, hosting and related services. Computer, electronics and semi-conductor manufacturing also saw strong gains, helping the tech manufacturing sector show positive growth for four of the last seven months.

While the outlook is very bright for tech industry as a whole, the telecom sector remains stagnant, with 38,500 lost jobs for 2017 to date, by far the biggest losses in the industry. In a time when telecommunication giants like Verizon and CenturyLink are trying to adapt to the new cloud-based landscape, we can expect to see some rocky employment numbers as old business lines are eliminated and new ventures receive resources.

"Telecommunications providers continue to remake their workforces as they shift away from legacy services and move towards emerging services," said Tim Herbert, senior vice president, research and market intelligence at CompTIA.

The tech sector employment trends shift and swing more than other industries because the industry itself is constantly evolving. Herbert says it isn’t unusual to see a tech company hiring in one business unit and conducting layoffs in another.

Last April, for example, Intel laid off 12,000 workers, or 11 percent of its workforce, as it took a hit from the pivot from PCs to the cloud and IoT. Early last month, Microsoft announced it was laying off thousands of its global salespeople, in addition to the nearly 5,000 jobs it eliminated last year. Cisco, IBM and HP have all also announced massive job cuts in the last eighteen months, while simultaneously developing new third platform technology applications.

The number of IT occupations in all other industries besides the information sector saw a decline of 74,000 jobs in July, the fifth month of decline in the seven months of this year.